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Template talk:Check
Splitting I think that given the complexity of the matter maybe we should split this template into three: ability, Skill and Random. I'm not sure. I'll look more deeply into the question when I finish Template:Foe. I'm not getting much editing time lately, in a couple of weeks I'll start editing heavily again. Scarbrowtalk 19:43, September 22, 2009 (UTC) : Good idea. I don't know anything about templates really, and borrowed the code from the Foe template, modified to match my "not knowing". If it's all the same I'll play with it on a quasi-daily basis in the effort to figure out how. Of course, with the attitude that any and all help from any source is both welcome and desired--Hastifertalk 20:01, September 22, 2009 (UTC) ::Oh, and impatience isn't the source of my tinkering. It's more about curiosity. I say that to try to relieve any pressure I may be applying in regards to "getting it done".--Hastifertalk 20:03, September 22, 2009 (UTC) ::: I welcome your efforts. Since K!Zero is not there lately, Octarinemage has retired and Havoc is quite busy, I'm left as almost the only one here with some degree of template knowledge. I suggest you can start learning here, here, and here. Good luck. Scarbrowtalk 21:13, September 23, 2009 (UTC) Template ideas I have a few ideas of how the template would look putting it into a page. Please note that it is almost a ripoff of the Template:Foe. It would look something like this: {{Check|checktype|success|bonusesfrom]]. Check type would be the type of the roll (trap, ability check, stat check, random roll/random check), success would be the roll needed, and bonuses from would be the things you get bonuses from. I read through the stuff Scarbrow linked too, but I still don't get it, so I can't do any kind of coding for it. --Thingirl 15:21, October 12, 2009 (UTC) : Same here, I'm waiting to have real time to devote to it. Or procrastinating. Not sure which. But I think your idea is what we do have in mind... So, great minds think alike.--Hastifertalk 15:36, October 12, 2009 (UTC) Level requirements I'm thinking of adding a "levelrequired" parameter, so you can specify if you need a certain level to make a skill check, but I cannot remember one single check when you're required to roll against a skill and required a minimum level at the same time. If I recall correctly, every time you make a Skill check, you don't need a level, and every time you are required a level, the roll is "hidden" so you only know if you won or failed. Please add counterexamples of this here, to see if I need to add that parameter. Scarbrowtalk 12:14, February 20, 2010 (UTC) :There MIGHT have been some such examples (Thievery 50+ and Diplomacy 40+) in the first Giants adventure, as well as an Arcana 20+ check in "A Dilemma in Kirnwell", but I'm not sure - it was a long time ago, when I wasn't doing a very good job of keeping record, plus it may have been changed. In any case "if you have the skill of X and wish to use it" is the old way. The GM stopped using it when he introduced the Hints system ("A particular power or skill may be of use here..."), so any such checks will be found only in old adventures and I'm not sure if we really need such a parameter - we can put the level required in the text, such as "if you have Thoevery 50+ you can attempt to use it, in which case you need to pass a check..." Something like that - I hope you understand what I mean.--Shadowblack 14:20, February 20, 2010 (UTC) :: That was exactly the kind of comment I needed, thanks. Scarbrowtalk 23:01, February 20, 2010 (UTC) Editorial comments Congratulation for being bold. I've fixed the spacing. See here for the explanation to your problem, in short, the wiki strips spaces at beginning and end of parameters, that's why it was ignoring yours. Now, for the other changes. I'm cool with the change of order of "success" parameter, so now behaves the same that "isawin" and "isafail". Scarbrowtalk 23:40, June 3, 2010 (UTC) : Thanks much for fixing them, Scarbrow. I knew the way I added the spaces was very, very inelegant -- and that you (or another admin) would come along soon to set my kludgy effort right. --Mercury McKinnon 02:14, June 4, 2010 (UTC) However, I'm not so sure about changing commas to periods. While the shorter different phrases are certainly easier to read, the previous setup visually differenced the Check from everything. All on the Check was on the same phrase, even if only the main part was colored (I made it that way because a colored check running for three lines was too shocking on the eyes). How can we combine the advantages of readability with some visual clue that you're reading the output of a Check template? : Yes, I understand that the rationale for the commas was to keep all the text for the check together as a single "sentence". (Before I made my edits, I had reviewed the template history to see what had been already been tried, and saw that the whole thing did used to be colored. And, good call to spare the readers' eyes.) : How about a font formatting change instead? Maybe using all italics (on the more subdued side), or else a different font for keywords/the whole check text? We'd have to experiment and get feedback I suppose to find the balance between distinctive and jarring. --Mercury McKinnon 02:14, June 4, 2010 (UTC) :: I've tried to join all sentences through a thin dotted border. Although I think it looks very well, please comment and suggest improvements. Scarbrowtalk 00:30, June 12, 2010 (UTC) ::: Wow. I didn't know one could make a border like that. Looks good to me too. I like it. Although... just a minor observation... When the check text extends over multiple lines (for instance, here) the bottom border of the upper line overlaps/crosses the top border of the lower line. Wouldn't it be tidier if these appeared as a single border? --Mercury McKinnon 05:35, June 12, 2010 (UTC) :::: I've removed the padding to fix it. The only problem now is the line of the WeaponSkill parameter is not separated from the general border, but I suppose that's a small price to pay for a cleaner look. Scarbrowtalk 15:10, June 14, 2010 (UTC) Also, we should clearly document if the editors need to take care to capitalize sentences put into win, lose and Notes, since they are now after a dot. Scarbrowtalk 23:40, June 3, 2010 (UTC) : Yes, I was hoping to come around to updating the template usage guidelines as soon as either someone else had acquiesced to or fine-tuned my (proposed) changes or some time had passed with no objections. Just waiting for the resolution to settle in. --Mercury McKinnon 02:14, June 4, 2010 (UTC) :: Fixed too. Scarbrowtalk 00:30, June 12, 2010 (UTC) Checks/Modifiers relating to a non-specified combat skill Hi. I noticed that the template currently doesn't cover the case where a modifier will vary depending on the player's relevant "combat skill" at the time of the check, similar to how combat XP varies. For instance, in Quest:Somewhere on the Road to Hawklor, the random checks to fend off the ogre's 2nd round of attacks derive a bonus based on the matching weaponry skill for the equipped weapon. Thus, Thingirl's original update described the bonus as from Weaponry: Slashing apparently since that was her adventurer's experience, whereas I've seen the bonus as from Weaponry: Polearms when I had my spear equipped, and when I had no weapon the bonus came from Unarmed Combat. So I'm thinking we'd need to include such scenarios where the modifier depends on one of the 10 combat skills (Unarmed Combat, the generic Weaponry skill and the 8 specialized Weaponry: skills. But I don't know my way around templates yet. :o) Thanks. --Mercury McKinnon 03:03, June 4, 2010 (UTC) : Well I see a problem with that. The template is designed to document fixed things, not variable ones. It wouldn't make much sense to implement a complex system to contemplate such case (even if we could find one, since we can't know what weapon will the player have) just to deal with one or two examples in the whole game. I'd say for this case use the most common case (Weaponry:Slashing) and then put a note explaining the weaponry subskill used depends on the weapon you have equipped on the encounter. Scarbrowtalk 23:55, June 4, 2010 (UTC) :: Hmm. If it is indeed too complex then we've no choice but to go that route. Actually I thought all we had to do was introduce an additional keyword, like "CombatSkill", which would represent this. "CombatSkill" would be shorthand for "whichever of the 10 combat skills you are using at the time of the check". As I've mentioned, the game showing variable behavior based on CombatSkill isn't exclusive to skill checks; it also underlies combat XP, so I figured it would be worthwhile to address. Thanks in any case. --Mercury McKinnon 11:54, June 7, 2010 (UTC) ::: I haven't thought it that way. Adding a new "CombatSkill" keyword (case insensitive) is indeed easy. I was complicating things on my head. Thanks for the suggestion, I'm on it. Scarbrowtalk 22:00, June 11, 2010 (UTC) :::: Done, the new keyword is "weaponskill". Scarbrowtalk 00:30, June 12, 2010 (UTC) Muchas gracias, Scarbrow! :) I tried out the new keyword here, and it works adequately. I really hope I'm not being much of a pain if I make a couple more suggestions: Instead of using "Appropriate weapon skill" I would :(A) Change "Appropriate"' to "Active". The latter sounds more, um, action-oriented so I think it's a better fit for the situation. :(B) I would prefer to replace "weapon skill" with "combat skill". Despite the nifty tooltip (which I think is a great idea) for me "weapon skill" on its own doesn't really cover the Unarmed Combat skill, or at the very least, it's preinclined to suggest the 9 Weaponry skills. On the other hand, "combat skill" neutrally includes both armed and unarmed combat. Also, the wiki employs the phrase "combat XP" for a similar idea that the players already understand, so in my opinion "combat skill" would be more intuitive, consistent/parallel and precise. But that's just my vote. I'd really appreciate other Srythizens' thoughts. Thanks, again, in any case. :) --Mercury McKinnon 06:20, June 12, 2010 (UTC) :: "Active" is in fact a good suggestion. I have another one I think even better: "Current". I won't make the change yet, we can first discuss it to find the best one. :: I chose "weapon" instead of "combat" because even if veteran editors and players know very well the difference between a "skill" and a "power" I though newer users could get confused. After all, you don't "use" skills in combat, you either "attack", "use an item" or "use a power". And I thought it was better to err on the side of suggesting it was something about the weapon, rather than a more general wording about the combat where a new user could confuse "combat skill" with "power", which in general speaking makes sense, even if in Sryth has a more restricted meaning. I'm open to comments of course. Even better of somebody else can join this. After all, it's only a syntax convention. Scarbrowtalk 15:20, June 14, 2010 (UTC) ::: I think "weaponskill" works just as well as "combatskill", so I don't have a preference. Strictly speaking, Unarmed Combat isn't (for now, but could in the future, be) weapon-related, but then Archery is a skill that could be considered part of combat but doesn't apply for our scenario. I added an Unarmed Combat example in the template's usage guidelines for this keyword, but I'll also look at at explicitly adding it to the tooltip itself (EDIT: Don't know where the tooltip code is located, but noticed it already has that example in its text). The important part is just that people interpreting the keyword know how to do it. ::: BTW, I may start using this template now; before, I avoided it since it looked more complicated than what I always wanted to use it for (typing it out as text was quicker than figuring out how to map it to the template). But that may just be the complicated-looking template guidelines rather than the template itself. It does seem to me that there are many template parameters/cases to easily absorb right away. I'm wondering if we should make the random check use "Random" instead of being the default case for the first parameter. (This may make future maintenance, searching, etc. easier due to consistency.) K!ZeRotalk 18:53, July 26, 2010 (UTC) :::: I'm glad you're considering using it. I find it quite easy to use, even if the instructions are a bit imposing. The main reason behind my choosing of the default first unnamed parameter is ease of use. The less precise the use has to be, the less probability a novice user will use it wrong because of something as simple as capitalization or a typo. However, you can consistently use "Random" if you want. Just keep in mind that word is far too common in this wiki to serve as a useful searching term. Scarbrowtalk 20:46, August 11, 2010 (UTC)